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Colorado coach Stewart says Eagles are believers

Game 5 victory has team aiming for history

By Adam Dunivan Sports Writer

Posted:
04/10/2013 09:30:49 PM MDT

Colorado Eagles defenseman Jake Marto, right, raises his arms after scoring a goal in Tuesday's Game 5 playoff win over Idaho at the Budweiser Events Center. The Eagles are flying to Boise with a little swagger despite being down 3-2 in the series.
(Steve Stoner)

Less than 10 percent of ECHL teams that go down 3-1 in a playoff series have come back to win. But, as Jim Carrey uttered so famously in Dumb & Dumber -- "so you're saying there's a chance."

Indeed, and Colorado coach Chris Stewart said Tuesday night that his team definitely feels they have a chance to make history in this ECHL Western Conference quarterfinal.

With a Game 5 win in the back pocket, the Eagles head to Boise, Idaho, for Friday's Game 6 a whole new team. All the pieces were in place for the Steelheads until an explosion of Eagle offense at the Budweiser Events Center resulted in the largest margin of victory of any game in the set so far, 7-4. The score doesn't indicate how dominating the Eagles really were, as they scored the first five of the contest and were ahead 6-1 early in the third period.

But Stewart indicated that, despite the hole Colorado dug itself in the win-loss category, the team has remained a mature and headstrong group throughout. That could pay off this weekend.

"There's a lot of negative things swirling around out there, a lot of people saying a lot of negative things," Stewart said after the win. "This is a team that has created relationships with their hearts and not with their heads. So they don't listen to the negative things that are being said all the time to them. They believe, they believe with their hearts.

"To me that's the difference and that's why I have so much respect for this hockey club. For everything that they've seen and gone through, had said about them and everything else, they continue to battle, and I'm proud of that."

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One can point to Game 4 on Sunday as the only contest in which Idaho had a decisive upper hand. Game 5, however, was a sample of what Colorado could do with some early momentum -- which was provided in a three-goal first period. The offense that was bottled up by Idaho goalie Tyler Beskorowany for two games finally got behind him, and Colorado continued the pressure on Josh Robinson when he entered the game in relief.

Now, Colorado has a bit of swagger heading to the CenturyLink Arena, where they scored nine goals between Games 1 and 2 -- and have split the past four games in that arena.

"We played good there the first two games, so we're a confident group going back," forward Kevin Ulanski said.

"It's not going to be easy, but no one said it was going to be easy," Stewart added. "This Game 6 will be the toughest that we've played all year, but that game won, you get to Game 7 and you can flip a coin."

Besides playing physical in their own zone, the key to a Game 6 win for the Eagles -- and whatever may come thereafter -- is to use the entire ice sheet as they did Tuesday. Three of Colorado's goals came from solid plays through the neutral zone with skaters getting clean passes and blazing by stationary defensemen.

Ulanski and Jake Marto cashed in that way, and a similar rush by Michael Forney along the wall led to a Kyle Ostrow goal. Of course, the shot placement has to be there, but the idea of the defensemen creating those rushes really is the match to the kindling.

"When the defensemen stay up on their options good, then it helps out the neutral zone so much," Ulanski added. "They're able to make those transition passes to the forwards that are building up speed. Marto's goal was an excellent opportunity for him to jump, and he's got some wheels. That was a really big goal for us.

"We talked about some different things we wanted to work on, like getting our (forwards) to come back for the support and we've got some guys that can really move it," defenseman Jason Beatty said. "We just want to get it from our stick to their stick and keep going at them in waves. (The forwards) did a real good job of coming back for us, and we just found them. We went up ice as a solid five, it that worked really well for us (Tuesday)."

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